Why am I suspicious of the things I see when I type natural weight-loss in to Google?

The Dark Mistress love/hates Google. It is a difficult relationship.

I love it for the immediacy and I hate it for the user experience – in this case trawling through weight-loss pills, weight-loss Doctors in the middle of nowhere, American weight-loss ra ra, weight-loss teas, and the newest, latest Jason Clements “EXPLOSIVE approaches to weight-loss”. (This gem apparently has nothing to do with unfortunate bowel reactions and but, rather, reveals “A shocking weight-loss secret that will make all your abdominal fat and every other “problem” area on your body disappear…. You will be able to eat carbs, fats and every other food you love…”)

This week Google announced that it is the site most visited by Australians – a whopping 12.7 million active online users. (According to Nielsen there are 14.6 million total active online users in the country). Not bad penetration. I am wondering if they’re as frustrated as me.

Some of the things you’ll find in a search like “natural approaches to weight-loss” are worth it, but the majority, are not. Yet there is so much good stuff out there. If only there was an army of human Editors in Google land reading, interpreting and rating weight-loss options for me, then I would probably be more satisfied. Wikkimedia came in at 5.902 million users, so there is at least some hope for Edited content.

According to this weeks release from Google, the average person will visit 86 domains, and view 2312 pages from a total active digital media universe of 14,576,475. Are you feeling overwhelmed yet?

Yours,

The Dark Mistress
The Balance Blog – A reflection on virtual life versus embodied life; ostensibly finding sunshine, holistic fitness, natural weight-loss and stress relief for an obsessed workaholic screen addict, with the occasional dig at the World Wide Web.